


Loving a Fighter

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6677641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eventually everyone - Becky, Father O'Malley, all the aggravated Sisters at the school - asked Bucky the same question. <em>Why Steve?</em> they wondered, but no one understood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loving a Fighter

“You’ll stop loitering about with that Rogers boy,” Mr. Barnes hollered, face nearly as red as his only son’s rear end after the paddling.  Bucky had thought he was dropping his shorts because he’d ruined his school clothes (Steve’s blood down his sleeve where he’d staunched his friend’s bleeding nose, shoes scuffed from the fight, shorts torn where they’d caught on the fence).  He hadn’t thought his Da cared which boys he ran with, as long as they weren’t sissies or Ulstermen. 

“He’s no good, that boy.  No one’s ever heard tell of a Joseph Rogers, dead or alive –” He’d been talking to Bucky’s Mam, then, who gossiped with the neighborhood over laundry and tea. “- and he fights like a savage.”  Bucky rolled his eyes, but kept his head down.  He’d heard his father’s stories of the war, and it didn’t sound as though the IRA had fought any differently than Steve did, only at least Steve hadn’t shot anyone dead.

“Besides,” his father finished, lighting a cigarette while Bucky fidgeted at his side, “the lads all say you’re his little shadow.”  He glared at Bucky, pursing his lips so the smoke of his exhalation didn’t hit Bucky full in the face.  “If you want to fight like a muck savage, Buck, then  _ fight _ !  Don’t get your knees dirty licking a smaller man’s shoes.”

Seamus Byrnes (George Barnes, if anyone from the government came asking), proud member of the IRA in Dublin (wanted murderer, proud owner of a placard with his sketch and the price on his head) shook his head at his son and frowned, but had clearly finished offering advice.  If Bucky continued to trail after Steve, it would be on his own head.

“Mind your Da,” his Mam added, handing him over to Becky while she fed Alice with one hand and rocked Nonie with the other.  Nonie was colicky, and months of her wailing was wearing on them all.  “That boy should never have been born, yet he plays king of the world, him and his mother both.”  Only someone so proud, Bucky’s Mam had told Mrs. Murphy, would insist on getting by without a man.  _  And look at the airs Sarah Rogers had taught her son, acting like he was too good for the company of other boys, telling them how to behave!  It’s no wonder the lad’s nose was always broken, up in the air where it didn’t belong. _

 

“You’re an idiot,” Becky hissed, when they were stretched out across the fire escape, Alice tucked next to Bucky nearest the window, Becky’s leg dangling over the far ledge.  “All the kids at school know it.  It’s  _ embarrassing _ , being your sister.  Couldn’t you trot after Mikey Richards –” The tallest boy in fifth grade, with hair almost as blond as Steve’s and Becky hanging on his every word like Mikey was God.  “- instead?  Or  _ anyone  _ besides Steve?”

Becky wasn’t their Da or their Mam, so Bucky elbowed her hard in the ribs, told her to shut up or he’d push her clear off the fire escape and Mikey Richards would never want her with a broken leg.

“I just don’t get it,” Becky said, because Bucky could probably push her off the tallest building in Manhattan and she’d keep right on talking.  “He’s short.  He has asthma.  When he sneezes, all this snot blows out his nose and  _ ugh _ ,” she shuddered, even though Bucky thought the snot fountain was kind of swell.  “Last week you got into it so loud that the entire school heard him call you a sissy!”  That had been after Bucky stole Steve’s knapsack and started running down the street, because they had homework that was more important than the McCormick boys who would still be assholes next week.  Steve didn’t like it when Bucky ran ahead; sometimes Bucky thought Steve never backed down because he  _ couldn’t _ , because he’d hunch over and gasp for air he couldn’t get before they’d even gone a whole block.

Bucky shrugged, even though his sister hadn’t asked.   _ Why Steve? _  Everyone had the same question: his parents, the Sisters at the school, Father O’Malley who despaired of making them peaceable Catholic boys, the other kids in the school yard when Bucky wouldn’t join a game unless they asked Steve, too.  Even Mrs. Rogers shook her head, sometimes, and declared that Bucky must have the patience of a saint and the soul of a martyr to put up with Steve.

Nobody ever asked Steve why he was friends with Bucky.  James Buchanan Barnes (his Mam had seen a sign at immigration, she said, and given the bairn a sturdy, American name that wouldn’t give his Da’s past away) kept his hair combed and his head down.  He could sing ‘God Save Ireland’ and the Soldier’s Song at the pub, when his Mam sent him out to fetch his Da for supper, and his Da wanted to show off his Free Irish son.  He could fetch the cups and plates for his Ma when the women came over, polished and quiet and top of his class at school, quieter and better behaved than Becky despite her lace trim.  He cheered for the Dodgers and traded bubble gum cards with the other boys at school, played shortstop and climbed trees quicker than kids twice his size.

The first time he’d met Steve, they’d collided.  Bucky had climbed into the alley for the baseball that had gone clear over the fence, and Steve had been trying to jog forward and look behind him all at the same time.

“What the –” Bucky started, before a grubby palm closed over his mouth.

“Shhh,” Steve had hissed unnecessarily, glancing over his shoulder at the buildings behind them.  “I think I lost them.”

“Lost who?” Bucky whispered back, the blond boy’s paranoia making him pull them both into the shadows, tossing the baseball back over the fence without joining it.

“I think Paddy and Dick are stealing cigarettes from Mr. Callahan’s store,” the small, wheezing boy had replied, blue eyes vivid in the afternoon shadows, his ear still red from where Sister Eleanor had twisted it before lunch.

“The Smith twins?” Bucky blurted out, louder than he meant to.  Paddy and Dick were three years older and huge.  Becky had warned him to never, ever go near either of them.   _ They can smell fear _ , she’d said, and their noses were big enough to smell Bucky from a mile away.  “You’re being chased by the Smith twins?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Steve whispered back, a gleeful smile lighting up his thin face—a smile Bucky hadn’t known meant they were bound for trouble, but knowing wouldn’t have changed a thing.  “I’m trying to catch ‘em in the act!  Mr. Callahan’s got that shotgun behind the counter he keeps swearing he’ll use.”

“You know that gun’s not loaded, right?” Bucky told the other boy, because he was pretty sure that gun was older than Mr. Callahan, and that Mr. Callahan was older than Brooklyn.

Steve huffed.  “’Course I know that,” he said, dragging Bucky out of the shadows and toward the back of Mr. Callahan’s store.  “But  _ they  _ don’t.”  And he looked at Bucky and grinned, open and thrilled at the chase and not expecting anything from Bucky, not good manners or good grades or Irish pride or a double play.

Bucky had limped home that night, because Paddy had tackled Steve when he had shouted for Mr. Callahan, and Bucky didn’t care much about scaring the twins but he did care about Steve getting his face beat in.  Then Mr. Callahan had run up, waving the shotgun, and Dick had screamed like a girl.  Paddy had begged the store owner to shoot Dick and spare him, and Mr. Callahan had rewarded Steve and Bucky with a whole chocolate bar.

The baseball game had ended by then, and they tumbled down into the outfield, stretched out in the grass and still laughing, Steve imitating Paddy’s watery voice with a mouth full of chocolate.

“Nobody’s ever done that,” he said finally, turning his head to look at Bucky, chocolate smeared past his lips.

“Done what?” Bucky wondered, licking the chocolate off his fingers and wishing Paddy hadn’t worn boots when he’d kicked Bucky’s knee.  “Been beat up by Paddy Smith?”

Steve shook his head, grass brushing over the freckles on his runny nose.  “Nah,” he said, for emphasis, “I’ve been beat up plenty by Paddy.  Nobody’s ever wanted to help me, though,” he added, voice quiet and so much smaller than his enormous plans.

Then he wiggled his shoulders, dismissing the surprise written over his face at finding Bucky still by his side.  “I think Mary Allman never has lunch because Bertha steals it in the mornings,” Steve said suddenly, looking at Bucky expectantly, as though fat Bertha Halloran had anything to do with them.

Steve’s grin lit the grass between them, like fire catching the kindling in their coal stove, and Bucky felt his face glow in return.  He wasn’t perfect James Barnes, that afternoon, playing shortstop and finishing his math homework before fetching his Da for supper.  He was a hero, saving Mr. Callahan’s store (and saving Steve--his new friend never mentioned it again, but it took years for that look of surprise to fade from blue eyes whenever Bucky joined the fight).

Bucky had spent his whole life being what he was supposed to be, everyone’s expectations settled like a still-damp sheet over his head, flattening over his nose and mouth when he tried to breathe.  Steve spoke and the world grew bigger, grew better than any comic book, made Bucky brighter, made him more than he was.

“Steve has adventures,” Bucky whispered to his sister, not bothering to add that Steve was too small for his own grand story.  That he needed Bucky.  And sometimes that meant blood in his mouth and Steve’s fist against his chin, because it wasn’t ever easy in Steve’s world.  Because no one else but Steve understood that Bucky didn’t want it to be easy.  “He’s my best friend,” he said firmly, but Becky snored softly and didn’t hear.  Bucky let her sleep, because being Steve’s friend was teaching him when to be fierce, and when to surrender the battle for a chance to win the war.


End file.
